


Not Long Enough at All

by heroictype (swanreaper)



Series: Not Long Enough at All [1]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-18 19:20:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16523117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swanreaper/pseuds/heroictype
Summary: An object at rest tends to stay at rest. An object in motion tends to stay in motion. A scientist who is silent tends to stay silent.(A take on That One, Inevitable post-It Devours! conversation. A warning for a mention of disordered eating practices.)





	Not Long Enough at All

**Author's Note:**

> Whoops it's been a while. And so, over a year after the fact, I have made an attempt. Apologies if it's a bit rough around the edges.
> 
> Disclaimer: Contains over 500 words of Carlos dialogue.

Carlos still found it difficult to be vulnerable. Scientifically speaking, that was part of what it meant to be vulnerable - an easy state to reach, difficult to navigate through. 

He was lying on their bed, ankles crossed, in a terrycloth lab coat. A towel was sliding off of his damp hair. There was still sand on his body, but he lived in a desert. There would always be sand on his body. He had washed away most of the excess, and the dust and sweat. He teased the screen of his phone, without really reading the text.

Cecil watched the undirected movement of Carlos' hand. Cecil said, "I have a question."

Carlos did not look up, but his hand stopped. "Is it about science?"

Cecil rolled onto his side, and set his chin on his knuckles. "It is… a question about math. Math is a part of science, right?" 

"Sometimes, it is." Carlos locked his phone, and then did not unlock it, but pressed the power button and swiped up and down to draw ripples of light over the screen.

"If one hour here was weeks there, then… Then how long was one year here, in time there?"

Carlos reached over to plug in his phone, and set it aside. He said, "You are very smart, Cecil. You do not give yourself enough credit about that."

"Well, thank you. But, oh, Carlos… I understand when I am being misdirected. Just tell me, if you don't want to talk about it. It's alright. But I remembered something you told me about momentum. I wasn't sure when to ask that question, if not now, before the situation settles around us."

"I do not want to talk about it," said Carlos, and then, "Ten years. Approximately ten years. Time in Night Vale is not an even metric, either." He frowned, and added, "At least I was not a teenager when I got stuck in time. Does this make me fortunate? It is not a scientific concept, fortune. So I can't tell."

It was just a thought, idle and bitter and guilty. The sort of illogical extension of reasoning that happened if you were alone with it too long. Now, oxygenated, changed by its exposure to the air and to another person, probably the person who was least supposed to have heard it.

Cecil's mouth opened, but he did not speak. His brow furrowed. He closed his lips, and kissed Carlos' temple, then tried again, in a whisper by his husband's ear, "I do not think we are unfortunate, either of us."

"No. I don't, either."

"I am just… surprised that you are here." Cecil sat up, and Carlos slid his hand toward his husband over the mattress. Cecil took it. "Do not mistake me. I am glad. I am grateful. But I have come to understand, just over the past few hours, that you were there longer than you have known me at all."

Carlos looked up at Cecil. The towel fell off onto the pillow.

Carlos thought, _this is why I did not want to tell you._

He thought, _this is why I should have told you, because this town and that place are bound up together, horribly knotted, and because in truth I could not let it go._

He thought, _I should have known, or did know, that my research would force something to happen. I was trying to force something to happen. But science is not about force, it is about description; and in the end, if science played a role here, it was that of the problem and not the solution. But that is not science's fault. It is mine._

He did not say any of this. What he said was worse, maybe.

"I thought about breaking up with you sometimes. Not because I did not love you, but because I do. It hurt deeply to be with you and to be unable to be with you. I thought about it when I spoke to you on the phone. I thought about it when it had been years, and I still could not find a way home."

"Carlos, you-"

"Shh. You were right about momentum. Let me finish, or I do not know when I will be able to. You spoke to me every night. I talked to you once every few weeks or so. I did not lose track of time more than usual, or forget to call you. I often had not heard from you in days, so it was difficult to judge how recent contact would have been for you. I could not call you daily, or I would have been talking to you every few hours.

"And so I made a life there, which did not have you in it. I made friends. I built a house myself. I found many scientifically interesting things. They were so interesting that I forgot to eat for days and days, and you know? I didn't always mind that. I was hungry, but I did not need to eat. I did not have to pause my experiments for anything, even my own body. I could let science be more important than myself. I could let that be my life, I…"

Carlos' words outpaced the air in his lungs. He had thought he was done with crying, earlier, but he had been incorrect about his capacity for lacrimal drainage. He rolled over, away from Cecil, but with that same movement shifted closer to his husband. Cecil placed an arm over him, and was silent. 

"But I knew. I knew that it was not the life I wanted, which was this life, here, with you. I tried to deny it, and sometimes I wonder if Night Vale accepted me again because I became so good at denying that truth.

"I won't deny it now. I came back because I missed you. I came to this town because it was - is - the most scientifically fascinating place in the U.S. I came here to study, and I did, and I will keep doing that. It's what I do. I'm a scientist."

Cecil was crying, too, but he smiled and nodded and, to break up the rote nature of those gestures, kissed the side of Carlos' head.

"But I came back here for love. Of you, specifically, and not of science, generally. And I'm sorry, Cecil. I'm sorry for not telling you. But it - it was momentum, again. Scientifically speaking, that was it. It was still, settled, and anyway, I knew that it would hurt you, and I can see that it did. I'm - I'm sorry."

Cecil sighed, "Carlos. You are... the most beautifully fascinating person in my life."

Carlos tipped his head back, peering up at his husband through his bangs, and Cecil kissed him again.

Cecil went on, "You are a brilliant scientist, and a lovely man. But you forgot something. There is one fact which slipped your mind."

"What is that?"

"You understood that our separation hurt me, and you understood that it hurt you. You also understood the true nature of that separation, when I did not. You kept that understanding to yourself, so that it would not hurt me more. But Carlos."

Cecil stroked a fingertip over the top of Carlos' ear, and repeated the gesture when Carlos relaxed into the motion.

"Dear, sweet Carlos. While you did this, you were hurting more. And more. Oh… And, no, I do not like to think about it. But neither did you. You did not want me to feel the pain of that understanding, and wandering lost in that desire, I think, is where you forgot something. You forgot that I would never have wanted you to hold that pain on your own."

"Cecil, I…" Carlos had thought he was done with crying, earlier, but he had been incorrect. It felt differently. Not like illness. Not like the chemical process it was, and not draining, or gouging out, or any of the other things that sobbing could be. He reached up, touching the back of Cecil's neck to draw him closer and kiss him. Just once. Just gently.

And then again.

And then a third time, at which point Cecil pushed himself up, and rearranged his body over Carlos, who shifted onto his back. Between that movement and a fourth kiss, Cecil said, "I love you. I love you. I… I am so glad you came back. Gods, _Carlos_."

"Of course. Of course, babe." It had not always been _of course_ , as much as it had. "I love you, too."

It was just one moment. One part of a conversation that would be ongoing, that would need to exist across words and gestures.

It would be Cecil, now understanding why Carlos seemed some mornings so frantic - because he was. Because he was uncertain about his position in time and space, before the unscientific but necessary input of his senses registered with him.

It would be Carlos, knowing that Cecil understood, and allowing himself to be fixed there, to the one point in space that was where he stood, in the connection of other lines and points and angles which was their home.

It would be the two of them, together.


End file.
